


Somewhere in the Pages We Forgot

by anthologia



Series: The Uncreatively-Named A/B/O Verse [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Cuddles, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Nesting, Possessive Behavior, Protectiveness, Robincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 17:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4357271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthologia/pseuds/anthologia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re mated, Tim,” Dick says slowly, in a tone of voice usually reserved for small children or panicking civilians. </p><p>“What is that supposed to mean? We’re mates? Did we move to England? Do we use that word to describe friendship and general camaraderie now? Did I miss that memo?” Her voice reaches a kind of hysterical note at the end, because absolutely nothing about this day so far has made sense and she’s only been awake for about ten minutes.</p><p>(Or, it is a totally normal day, except for the part where Tim wakes up with Jason and Dick and also apparently significant portions of society and human biology changed and no one bothered to notify her.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't always write A/B/O, but when I do, I make it needlessly complicated by dropping the POV character in from another universe. *SHRUG* Written for the body/mindswap prompt on my h/c bingo card.
> 
> Title from "This is Your Life" by the Killers.

There are people. Around her. Tim is completely, 100% certain she went to bed alone, but _there are people wrapped around her._ She freezes in place, not really sure whether to fight them off or stay still until she’s gotten her bearings. The latter thought wins out, and she opens her eyes slowly, being careful to keep her breathing even and slow, like she’s still asleep.

She’s half-lying on someone’s chest. Someone _large_ and impressively-built, who she still does not remember going to bed with, someone who… has a very familiar shock of white hair. _Someone who is also very naked Jesus Christ_.

Trying to back away from Jason pushes her into the person at her back, who mumbles something incoherent and throws an arm around her waist. Okay. This is. This is bad. Tim may be starting to panic, just a little, but she doesn’t have _time_ for that because she can _feel_ her as-yet-unidentified second bed partner starting to wake up behind her. There’s a yawn and a face pressed against the back of her neck before –

“Tim?” And what in the _actual_ hell, that’s Dick. His arm tightens around her, holding her closer. “What’s wrong? I can practically smell you freaking out.”

– As if that’s not the weirdest goddamn sentence he could say. Tim’s pretty sure she’s about two seconds away from losing control of what very little calm she’s retained, but Dick moves first, shifting so his body is covering hers and pinning her to the mattress. It really, _really_ shouldn’t be helping, but the press of his body against hers is weirdly comforting.

Dick kisses her neck and murmurs soothing nothings against her skin – _shh, sweetheart, I have you, you’re okay, Tim, everything’s okay_ – before carefully extracting his hand from the tangle of their bodies and shoving Jason in the arm with it.

Jason cracks an eye open and glowers. “The hell was that for?”

Dick pulls his face away long enough to hiss what Tim could _swear_ sounds like “Our omega is having a panic attack, you _ass_ ”, except that makes about as much sense as _I can practically smell you freaking out_.

“Shit.” Jason twists around so he can kiss her on the forehead, and she’s starting to feel like her brain is on permanent loop of _what, what, what is happening._ “Hey, Babybird. Wanna tell us what’s going on in that head of yours?”

She stares up at him helplessly, confused and so, so lost. “I don’t. Where am I?” she whispers, and there’s something _sharp_ in the air, sudden and painful like another stab of panic in her chest.

“You don’t remember?” Dick asks, taking too much care in sounding casual for it to be genuine.

“Should I? I fell asleep at my apartment, and – why, why are you _nuzzling_ me?”

Jason and Dick share a concerned stare over her head. Which, she’s pretty sure _why are you nuzzling me_ is a valid question, even if it feels weirdly comfortable.

“We’re mated, Tim,” Dick says slowly, in a tone of voice usually reserved for small children or panicking civilians.

“What is that supposed to mean? We’re mates? Did we move to England? Do we use that word to describe friendship and general camaraderie now? Did I miss that memo?” Her voice reaches a kind of hysterical note at the end, because absolutely nothing about this day so far has made sense and she’s only been awake for about ten minutes.

And Dick’s doing that _thing_ again, covering her with his body in a way that feels inexplicably _safe_. This time, Jason’s helping, running his hand through her hair – _you’re okay, Babybird, we’ll figure out what’s going on, we’ll fix this, promise –_ until she feels slightly dazed but definitely isn’t panicked anymore.

Jason kisses her forehead and pulls away with a sigh. “I’ll go start the coffee.”

\--

Half an hour later, they’ve relocated to the living room with caffeine and bagels to hash out what the hell’s going on. Tim tries to sit on a chair by herself, but Dick frowns at her for a second, shakes his head, and picks her up, setting her on the couch with him where he can wrap his arms around her. Which is… disconcerting, and she opens her mouth to object.

“Just go with it,” Jason says. “You’ll feel better, and it’s practically impossible to get Dick off you when he’s worried anyway.” Tim’s lips thin out, but she cautiously settles back into his hold while Jason starts filling her in on what she’s apparently missing.

The basic information is… odd. According to Jason and Dick, they’re in a three-person relationship and have been for a year and a half now. They’re committed – _mated –_ to each other, which is apparently extremely normal. They toss around words again, _omega, beta, alpha_ , which Tim assumes are some kind of designation system, but when she asks how they picked who got what designation, she’s answered with blank looks.

“It’s biology, Babybird,” Jason says carefully.

Dick’s running his hand through her hair, massaging her scalp. It feels nice, comforting. “You were born an omega, just like I was born alpha and Jason was beta.”

“So – I’m an omega,” Tim says, if only for the sake of argument. “And that means… what?”

“You really don’t remember?” Dick asks quietly.

“I really don’t.”

Jason catches Dick’s eye. “Look, is it possible she’s – “

Dick’s hold on her tightens. “She’s ours. Trust me on that.”

“Fill me in, then.” Tim twists around so she can see Dick, who’s looking back at her with a weird, unfamiliar glint in his eye. Possessive in a way she’s not used to. “Why can’t I be from another universe? That’s what Jason was going to ask, isn’t it? If this is so basic, wouldn’t I already know it?”

“You’re ours,” Dick says again. “There’s a – I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just _you_.”

“At least _try_ ,” Tim snaps, and Dick presses a hand to the back of her neck, guides her forward so he can kiss her. And it feels –

She knows, _objectively_ , that she’s never kissed Dick Grayson before. But it still feels familiar, natural, like something they’ve done a thousand times before, but also more… _potent_ , somehow, than any other kisses she’s had. He slips his tongue past her lips, and she feels almost _dizzy_.

Tim’s panting slightly when Dick pulls back, and she just _wants_ , wants – she’s not sure what. Jason chuckles, startlingly close. He’d moved to the couch while she wasn’t paying attention.

“Hits you like a brick the first time, doesn’t it? I’m not even as sensitive as you, and sometimes I can barely think.”

“What.” She licks her lips and turns her head so she can see him, feeling stupid. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s like – shit. Okay, so you’re compatible, and you can just kinda _feel_ that shit, right?” Jason looks at her like he’s waiting for confirmation of some kind, but she has none to give. He keeps going anyway. “So when you’re mated, it’s that times ten. Like you’re, I don’t know. Tuned to each other?”

“Cause you’re our omega,” Dick says matter-of-factly. “And I’m your alpha and Jason’s our beta. We just _fit_.”

“Right, that.” Tim starts the process of disentangling herself from Dick, because she thinks his presence might be scrambling her thoughts slightly. “That makes perfect sense and explains _everything_. I need air.”

Instead of helping her out, Dick tightens his hold on her very slightly. Jason reaches over and rests a hand on his arm. “She’s not in any danger, Dick,” he says, low and careful. “She’s just confused. Let her get some air.”

Tim’s not sure what makes Dick listen to Jason, but the minute she’s free, she’s up and heading for what looks like the front door like a s _hot_. Jason still has his arm on Dick’s, holding him still, when she lets herself out and sucks in a few lungfuls of fresh air. When she said she needed air, she’d meant it figuratively, but now that she’s out in the open, it does feel like she’s breathing more cleanly. Like coming out of a room with incense and suddenly realizing the scent you’d stopped even noticing is gone.

 _Christ_. What has she gotten herself into?


	2. Chapter 2

She had the presence of mind to shove her phone into her pocket earlier, so Tim ducks into a coffee shop not too far away, pulls it out and starts Googling. Timothea Drake’s relationship status, according to the usual celebrity sources, is mated and in a long-term relationship with Dick Grayson, though rumor has it there’s an unidentified third party involved. The amount of information about omegas, betas, and alphas is overwhelming, so she only has time to skim through some sources. It confirms that this is definitely a widespread phenomenon, a biological characteristic like Jason and Dick told her.

Speaking of whom – Jason sits down at the table across from her and pushes a fresh cup of coffee towards her. She glances up for a second before tucking the phone back away in her pocket.

“GPS, or did you just follow me?”

“Tracked the phone.” He reaches over the table to rest his hand lightly against hers. “How’re you feeling now?”

“Fine, considering the world I woke up to isn’t the one I fell asleep in.” Her gaze flicks over to the door. “Where’s Dick?”

“Convinced him to stay outside for now. Figured we didn’t need his alpha pheromones all over the place.”

“That’s a…?” She waves a hand vaguely at her nose. “I wasn’t sure. If I was just imagining it or something.”

“Yeah.” Jason shrugs. “It gets heavy when he’s worried about one of us. It’s supposed to be calming or some shit. I don’t know, it’s great if you have a nightmare or something but too much makes my brain turn to mush. He’s been putting it off pretty much since we woke up.”

She stares down at her coffee for lack of anything else to focus on. “They all do that? Alphas? It sounds…” Compromising. “…like a bit of a hazard.”

“Nah, not all of them. Not that strong, anyway. And it hits you and me the hardest cause we’re tuned to it. Look,” he says, leaning forward slightly, “Dick got in touch with Zatanna after you left. We want her to take a look at you, see if she can figure out anything about what happened. That okay with you?”

It’s a good idea. She nods slowly, and Jason lets out a breath and squeezes her hand. “Okay,” he says. “Good. We’ll figure this out, Babybird.”

\--

They don’t figure it out. At least, not that day. Night comes, and all they know for sure is that there’s no particular evidence that Tim’s mind or body has been tampered with. Zatanna acknowledges the possibility that a world without the alpha-beta-omega designations could certainly exist, but as to what’s going on – all magic can give them is a big fat shrug and a line about the multiverse being incredibly chaotic and random.

They’ve spent a good portion of the day tossing ideas back and forth about what’s going on in between the consultations they can squeeze in on short notice. Dick and Jason are convinced her memories have been tampered with, while she maintains that she somehow traveled between realities. There are arguments for and against both, and they both have difficult questions to answer, like how it happened and what the possible motive could be for an attack on her of this type.

By late night, she’s exhausted from the stress and submitting herself to examination by what feels like everyone they could possibly dredge up. They even went to Leslie for a physical exam and brain scan that confirmed she’s about as healthy as can be expected and doesn’t have any abnormalities in her brain that could account for memory loss or erratic behavior. Somewhere around round thirty-three of the same old argument, she decides it’s time to call it quits.

Getting ready for bed is… _weird_ , domestic. She goes looking for something to sleep in and finds that most of her pajamas incorporate shirts stolen from either Dick or Jason. She stares at the toothbrushes in the bathroom for a minute before just grabbing a new one, and she keeps getting thrown by the way Dick and Jason work around each other so easily, like it’s completely normal and routine. She supposes it _is_ , to them.

Dick puts a hand on her shoulder to keep her still when she tries to head for the spare bedroom she spotted down the hall. “Going somewhere?” he asks, looking oddly hurt.

“I don’t know if I… feel comfortable sleeping here.” Or rather, she thinks she _would_ feel comfortable sleeping with them, and that’s not something she wants to examine right now. “Sorry, you’ve been…” A little overbearing, but she doesn’t want to _say_ that. “…nice. But it’s just too weird.”

“That’s fine,” Jason says, coming up behind Dick and resting a hand on his shoulder. It looks casual, but she can see the way his hold tightens, a not-exactly-gentle warning.

Dick’s face tightens unhappily, but he nods. “Yeah. That makes sense.” But he doesn’t move away from her. “ – Look, I get it. We’re being overwhelming. It’s just…” He groans, frustrated. “I don’t think you _get_ it. It’s not _just_ that you’re our mate. I mean, it is, but I don’t think you realize – I know Jason explained to you about my pheromones, but _you’re_ giving them off, too. And they’ve pretty much been screaming at us to _fix this_ all day. So it’s really hard to just give you space, cause all our instincts are telling us to do the opposite.”

That’s… not actually something she’d thought about as a possibility. Mostly because – she doesn’t _feel_ that different, and Tim’s pretty sure she’s never had an issue with setting off overpowering pheromones in the past. “Sorry. I don’t… know how to turn it off?”

“We’re not asking you to try to turn off biology, Babybird. Just get where we’re coming from.” Jason tugs on Dick, not-so-subtly signaling that it was time to back off. “Get some sleep, Tim. We’ll go back to figuring this shit out tomorrow.”

“Right,” she says, not quite sure how to feel about the slight tug of… disappointment? she feels when she turns and heads for the other bedroom. Probably better to just not think about it at all for now.

\--

Tim half-hopes that, when she wakes up in the morning, it’ll turn out to have all been an incredibly strange and vivid dream. She’ll wake up in her apartment and hopefully forget everything that happened.

She doesn’t. She wakes up in a bed that feels way too empty, particularly considering that she’s _used_ to sleeping alone, and stares blankly at the ceiling for a while before dragging herself back to the bedroom that Jason and Dick shared in search of clothes. To her relief, they’ve already woken up, so she only has to contend with digging around their things. One shower later, she feels marginally more prepared to deal with whatever the day has to throw at her. Right up until she walks into the kitchen and finds Dick and Jason kissing passionately and no, no, she is _not_ ready for that.

She stutters out an apology and all but dives out of the room, but it’s not fast enough. It’s too warm all of the sudden, and not just from embarrassment (although _god_ she has a lot of that). They’re on her heels in moments, Dick getting a hand on her and turning her gently to look at them.

“Hey. How’re you feeling?”

She just opens her mouth and starts babbling whatever pops into her head. “Fine! Great. I’m just going to – you can go back to…”

Jason just smirks at her. “You know, you could join us.”

She wasn’t sure her skin could get any redder but apparently it could, so she’s learning a lot about herself today. “I –“

Dick aims a glare at Jason before turning his attention back to her. “Sorry, we didn’t think you’d be up yet. Did anything…?”

“…change overnight? No. Same me I was last night.”

If Dick’s trying to hide the disappointment he feels, he’s doing a terrible job of it. “No… memories or anything coming back?”

“Not so much as a vague impression.” Well. Not exactly true. She’s had a lot of vague impressions, little familiarities without the accompanying memories to explain them, but she’s not sure she wants to bring that up right now. For one thing, it lends credence to the idea that her memories have been tampered with, and that’s not a possibility she’s currently prepared to consider.

“Okay.” Dick offers her a somewhat strained smile. “That’s… fine. We’ll figure things out.”

“It’s not fine, and you don’t have to keep telling me that,” Tim says. “This is not a good situation. I _know_ it’s not. Stop coddling me.”

“Hey.” Jason rests a hand firmly on the back of her neck, which should really feel incredibly inappropriate and uncomfortably intimate. Instead, she feels some of the tension coiled up in her ease off. “We’re just trying to be positive, Babybird. Dick knows this is fucked, he just doesn’t want to make it worse.”

She sighs, letting a little more of her frustration bleed out with the breath. Then she reaches back, rests a hand against his where it’s resting on her neck. “What are you…?”

“Sorry,” Jason says, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “Old trick. Usually calms you down a little.”

And that’s… _fuck._ She jerks away from them, from both of them, because, because not only is this not her world but they apparently know things about her body that even _she_ doesn’t know. Things that they’re perfectly willing to exploit if the occasion calls for it, and that’s… Tim takes another few steps back. “ _Don’t_ ,” she snaps. “Don’t do that. That’s _part_ of it, coddling me and using ‘old tricks’ to try to manage me. This is fucked up, and I’m entitled to be upset about it.”

“Tim…”

“I’m going out for air. Again. Don’t come looking for me this time.”

Once she’s outside, it takes a few deep breaths clear her lungs of the lingering traces of Dick and Jason’s respective scents. Speaking of which, she’d been meaning to do a bit more research into the alpha-beta-omega designation system, rather than rely on Dick and Jason’s explanations. Now’s as good a time as any.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shameless telling instead of showing + other stuff

She spends most of her daylight hours researching – at a café, first, where she got something to eat, and then at the library, where she’s built herself a miniature fort of books and academic journals to look over. So far, Dick and Jason have abided by her request to not come after her; she’s received a couple texts, to which she replied that she was fine, and that’s been it. Having them back off makes her feel a little more calm and less smothered, and frees her attention for absorbing information.

As best as she can tell, the existence of the alpha/beta/omega system is the primary difference between this world and the one she remembers, but it has widespread effects. Society is structured a little differently. The interaction with gender is… complex. When reading up on the historical and traditional roles of alphas and omegas, there are certainly parallels to the way her world constructed the gender roles for men and women. Alphas were typically characterized as aggressive, omegas as caretakers, etc. And judging from what she recognizes, alphas are typically male and omegas are typically female, but not always.

She’d thought at first that the alpha/omega distinction was based on the reproductive systems, but then she found out that betas were also perfectly capable of bearing or siring children. Going back, it looks like the main distinctions are the mating cycle and bundled instincts. Betas don’t have a mating cycle, although they do experience certain sympathetic affects, primarily when mated to someone who is experiencing the peak of one. But overall, they’re considerably less of a hot mess of hormones, and for that reason, relationships with an alpha, omega, a _nd_ a beta are generally considered the most stable. At least that explains why a polyamorous relationship doesn’t raise any eyebrows.

There’s some interesting theories that alpha and omega birth rates are dropping because the human race no longer needs the mating cycles to keep itself going and will eventually become almost entirely beta, because it’s more flexible and adapts better to the changes in how humans live. It’s a new interpretation, though, and there’s not as much information on it as she’d like.

Trying to understand the pheromones and scents that Jason and Dick brought up and how it intersects with all of this is giving her a headache. She’s just considering a break to try to decide if it’s worth continuing this avenue of information or switching to something else when she realizes one of the librarians has been trying to get her attention.

Tim blinks. It’s been a while since she last surfaced from her research, but she doesn’t _think_ it’s the end of the day already. “Sorry. Is the library closing?”

“Not for a few hours. I’m here to, um – are you feeling okay, Ma’am? Is there… someone you’d like me to call for you?”

“…No?” Tim glances up. Does she… look sick or something? “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Well. You’re not… exactly…” The librarian winces slightly. “Most of our patrons use the tables instead of the floor. And you’ve… acquired… most of the floor pillows from the children’s section.”

“The tables were full when I started.” And there had been more room on the floor. It may be a little… _eccentric_ , she will admit that. But. It made sense when she started out.

(Although. Now that she’s thinking about it, she can’t… really reason out _why_ this was a logical choice.)

“It’s okay, I’m not here to kick you out,” the librarian says, her voice softening. “I can help you move to a table if you want. It’s just that, it looks like… you’re nesting?”

_Nesting_. That was in one of her research books. Something omegas would sometimes do either as a natural preparation for heat or when they felt extremely stressed or unsafe. Usually, it occurred in the privacy of their own homes, but if that was unavailable, then creating a nest in a public space wasn’t out of the question. Harmless, mostly, but embarrassing.

“I’m… all right,” Tim says slowly. God, she hadn’t even really _noticed_. But yeah, the arrangement of books around her, the pillows, and – did she take someone’s _jacket_? That must have been a recent find; she vaguely remembers adding to the pile the last time she had to get up for another book. “I think… I should leave.”

“I can wait with you, if you’d like. Or… did you want to check some of these out?”

Tim stares at her stacks of books. She _had_ intended to take a few home with her, and she probably still should, but she – she just needs to get out of this building. “No. I’m fine. I’m sorry for making a mess, I don’t think… I have to go.” She honestly feels bad for leaving the poor woman to clean up, but if she stays in the building more than a few seconds longer, she might start screaming.

What is _wrong_ with her? _God_. She’s still not sure if she’s ready to face Jason or Dick right now, but she still sends a text to both of them: _Come get me._

It doesn’t take them long. Within ten minutes, she has Dick folding her into a hug against him, Jason just a few feet behind, and she hadn’t realized how much she actually missed his smell until just now. It feels oddly like… not a _defeat_ , but a surrender. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… fine. I guess.” She giggles for a second, not because it’s funny but because it’s _absurd_. “I was… nesting? Apparently. I didn’t even…”

“It’s fine, Babybird. It happens.” Jason gets an arm around – well, both of them, actually, and starts leading them to the car.

“I don’t understand,” she says. Dick gently guides her into the back seat of the car and sits down next to her, and Tim lets him, lets him hold her close while Jason climbs in the other side so she’s sandwiched between the two of them. It’s not the roomiest configuration, but it’s reasonably private. “What’s going on. I’m not _me_.”

Dick kisses her forehead. “You _are_ you, Pretty Bird, you just don’t remember.”

“So I’m a person who steals someone’s jacket and doesn’t even realize it because she’s ‘stressed’? That’s not exactly _comforting_.”

“Well, no,” Jason says, a low drawl of amusement in the words. It’s nice that _someone_ sees humor in that situation, even if it’s not her. “But you _do_ nest when you’re working on a case for a long time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked in on you surrounded by all this random crap.”

“You’ve been doing it as long as I’ve known you.” Dick squeezes her shoulder. “Takes some time to clean up, but I think it’s cute. Plus, you’ve found some stuff I gave up for lost several times. I still don’t know how you do it.”

“So I’m a _useful_ magpie. Still not much of an improvement.”

Dick presses another kiss to the top of her head. “Go easy on yourself.”

“I apparently stole someone’s jacket,” she says, and Jason presses his face against her shoulder and laughs helplessly.

Dick just squeezes her tighter. “Well, let’s…” His lips twitch upwards before he catches himself and schools his expression into something more sympathetic. “Let’s just go home before you strike again. Okay?”

Ugh, _both_ of them. What had she even been _thinking_ , getting into a relationship with –

“Tim? Are you okay?” Jason asks, lifting his head up so he can look at her with familiar-unfamiliar concerned eyes, and she forces herself to untense.

“I’m fine.” She _is_. She’s tired and unsettled, and that’s why she’d been asking herself a question like this was _her_ life. It doesn’t mean anything. “Let’s just go.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in my fics and want more, I have an account at syntactition.tumblr.com where I have bits of stories that are currently in the works and other ficlets and stories that haven't made their way to AO3.


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